1986 story on the death of Seth Bishop

Monday

This article was printed in the Dec. 17, 1986, Braintree Forum after an interview with the family of Amy Bishop after the death of Seth Bishop.

This article was printed in the Dec. 17, 1986, Braintree Forum after an interview with the family of Amy Bishop after the death of Seth Bishop.

BRAINTEREE – Seth Bishop couldn’t think of a thing he wanted for Christmas.

This is probably because he already had everything that was important to him.

He was the core of the family that loved him as much as any family could love a son or brother.

And that’s all that mattered to him.

Just as extras, he was an accomplished musician and a brilliant scholar.

Even though he didn’t know what he wanted for Christmas, holiday shopping together was a family tradition.

So, on Saturday afternoon, Dec. 6, Seth was going Christmas shopping with his mother Judy, his father Sam and his sister Amy.

He was carrying in groceries before his trip to the Plaza, when a horrifying accident occurred in the kitchen of his home on Hollis Avenue.

And in the fraction of a second his life was taken.

How can a family carry on when its core has been shattered?

“We have to. He loved us so much,” his mother Judy said.

When he was a toddler, she called him Dandelion because his wispy gold hair sprouted out of his head like petals on a dandelion. The joy that he brought her, his father and his sister only grew as time went on.

“I remember one day when he was five, he came home sobbing. He had a stain on his new hand-knit blue sweater.

“He had crushed a robin’s egg in his hand by mistake and thought he had killed a baby bird.

“It took an hour to calm him down.

“I said to myself how can I send this gentle little boy out into the world.”

But the gentle little boy did go out into the world.

He amazed his teachers at the Colbert and Hollis schools, then East Junior High with his penchant for math and music.

In fact, no subject was beyond his grasp.

“He knew physics even when he was seven years old,” Amy Bishop said.

“One of his favorite things was to go exploring.

“He would go to the town hall and get a map, first in Braintree, then when he was older, in Holbrook and Randolph.

“He would map out a route and follow it on his bike. The point was to cover as many streets as possible

“One day when I was about seven and I was with him, I fell down a small cliff and couldn’t get up,” Amy said.

“He knew even then if he spread his body a certain way, he could add strength and pull me up.

“He saved my life that day,” Amy said.

It was in high school Seth Bishop really hit his stride in his studies and in his music.

In his junior and senior years he studied violin with George Tuerck.

“He was like a son to me,” George said.

“He loved music and we had a wonderful rapport. He did his utmost for me. He even enjoyed my humor.

Seth became the Braintree High School concertmaster and a member of the Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra under George Tuerck’s tutelage.

Seth graduated from Braintree High in June and began as an electrical engineering student at Northeastern in September.

At the time of his death, he was about to join the university symphony orchestra.

The symphony director offered to find him a special teacher, but Seth said he planned to return to George Tuerck.

“What a compliment,” George said., after learning of his student’s decision.

Honor upon honor was heaped upon Seth at Braintree High School. He won the Arion music award, the national high school math award and first prize in the science fair in chemistry and biology.

“He never told me about anything. I would read about it a few days later in the paper,” Judy said.

One of the sweetest sounds to Seth, second only to the sound of his violin, was the whir of a car engine.

After saving for six years, he bought his first car last year, a fire engine red Camaro.

He practically bent the steel fenders, he shined it so often, his mother remembers.

A friend David Ludwig was very proud of his new Porsche and its stereo system.

“He took Seth for a ride and was blasting the stereo to show it off.

“All Seth wanted was for him to turn the stereo down so he could hear the sound of the engine,” Judy said.

The tall, lean young man, who kept in shape by running and lifting weights, did not limit his love of wheels just to four-wheeled vehicles.

Motorcycles intrigued him.

In fact, a ride on his friend George Phillips’ cycle prompted him to write a short story on the subject which was printed in the high school literary magazine, “Stone Soup.”

If a certain type of weather brings out a person’s character, then one would choose snow for Seth Bishop. “He loved snow. First he would make sure that each one of us was home safe in the house, then he would shovel the front walk so Sam wouldn’t have to, then he’d go around the neighborhood shoveling,” Judy said.

Francis Cleggett, an elderly neighbor on Dearing Avenue, will never watch the snow fall again without remembering Seth’s kindnesses.

“He was a good boy. He was so helpful. “Anytime, anytime” he repeated, “I needed him he was there, especially if I was stuck in the snow..

“They raised a good son. Dear Lord we will miss him,” he said.

Another neighbor Debbie Kosarick of 42 Hollis Avenue also will almost hear the scraping of Seth’s snow shovel on her driveway in years to come.

“He watched out for me and my baby. He shoveled. He salted the driveway. He even brushed off my car and turned it around. And this was without my asking.

“I never saw a young man with such a strong sense of family..

“He cared about each one so much.

“He was concerned about his father’s safety because of a dragging muffler and spent hours fixing it a few days before his death.

“The last thing he did was to run up to Purity to get some groceries for his mother.

“He loved my baby so much and was so good to her. It’s unbearable to drive into my driveway now without him.,” Debbie Kosarick said.

Braintree High School student Kevin Scales will remember Seth as a concerned tutor who went out of his way to smooth the rough edges of math for him.

School Committee Member Paul Agnew was intrigued by the young man’s dry humor and intense curiosity “about everything in this life.”

His English teacher Pam Forde thanked Seth’s mother Judy at the funeral “for allowing me to know him for a year.”

It seems like all of the kindnesses that Seth bestowed on his friends, teachers and neighbors came back to his family during their tragedy.